In the wake of a growing number of scandals involving fake news and high-profile content creators that publish through their platforms, the two digital behemoths have found themselves facing scrutiny and scorn from the public, politicians and advertisers at a level they haven't experienced previously.

On Sunday, advertising's biggest annual event in the U.S., The Super Bowl, took place.

With 30-second ad spots selling for a cool $5m, the stakes are high for brands that opt to participate. Creating an ad that isn't well-received, or worse, is forgotten, by the more than 100m people who tune in to the Big Game, is a big fear.

Life continues to get more and more difficult for marketers, particularly those who target users as precisely as possible.

Earlier this week, Mozilla announced that it has added Opt-in Tracking Protection to Firefox Quantum, the latest version of its popular browser. Opt-in Tracking Protection enables users to block trackers, many of which are used by ad networks, all time time. Previously, Firefox blocked trackers only when users were browsing in private mode.

The potential repeal of the 2015 net neutrality rules that were implemented in the U.S. by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has sparked an outcry from consumers, consumer rights groups, businesses and trade organizations.

Under a proposal unveiled last week, ISPs would, among other things, no longer be banned from charging companies to prioritize the delivery of their content or restricting access to particular online services that utilize significant resources.

The price of Bitcoin recently touched the $6,000 level for the first time ever, and this year has seen the cryptocurrency's value jump by over 500%.

Given the rising fortunes of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, it's no surprise that scammers have sought to capitalize. One of the ways they have attempted to cash in on the cryptocurrency craze is through a new phenomenon dubbed cryptojacking.

This week, Google killed its 'first click free policy', which required that publishers employing a paywall offer Google Search and Google News users three free articles per day. Those that didn't saw their search rankings demoted.

For years, publishers complained that first click free policy made it difficult for them to maximize their subscription revenue. Yet many chose to follow it rather than give up Google referral traffic.

But while there has been significant concern that the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) roll-back of consumer broadband privacy rules raises the possibility that ISPs could use their treasure troves of data without customers' permission, the largest ISP in the US appears to be taking a more cautious approach than it might legally have to when it comes to exploiting customer data.